Russia has network of secret special prisons for Ukrainian prisoners of war - human rights activist Polozov
Russian authorities have created a system of secret prisons for Ukrainian prisoners of war.
According to Censor.NET, this was reported by the Russian edition of the Agency, citing a lawyer and co-founder of the humanitarian initiative "Search. Polon" humanitarian initiative, Mykola Polozov.
They learned about the existence of secret prisons by accident
According to Polozov, human rights activists learned about the existence of secret prisons in the fourth year of the war by chance, from certificates of detention of Ukrainian military captured in the Kursk region and near Donetsk.
"In several criminal cases against prisoners of war that we conducted in courts, we saw certificates about where they were held," the human rights activist explained.
Usually, as Polozov clarifies, prisoners of war are held in pre-trial detention centers or penal colonies. But in one of the cases, the human rights activists saw "a temporary detention center for people who were detained for opposing the AFU," Polozov said.
He believes that it was one of these institutions that was mentioned in a story by Zvezda TV channel in 2022 (human rights activists found the story after information about the existence of previously unknown "centers for detaining people detained for opposing the AFU" appeared). The publication of the Russian Ministry of Defense reported that the "center for the temporary detention of prisoners of war of the Armed Forces of Ukraine" was deployed on the site of a former grain storage facility. The video did not specify the location of this center.
How many such centers are there in Russia?
There are at least five such centers, Polozov told the Agency.
"We know about at least three or four (based on case files), plus this report - this is the fifth. I dare say there may be more," the human rights activist believes.
Addresses of such centers cannot be established.
Human rights activists have not been able to find any legal addresses or procurement records that would allow them to trace the existence of these prisons.
"They are not part of the FSIN system, they are controlled, apparently, by the Ministry of Defense and the military police. And they categorically refuse to provide us with any information we have requested," Polozov explained.
Do you know how many prisoners are held in such centers?
It is unknown how many prisoners are held in secret prisons, Polozov said.
It is impossible to determine this, among other things, because a large number of prisoner of war files do not contain information about places of detention, the lawyer explained. The prisoners of war, in whose cases human rights activists found information about secret prisons, have not yet returned to Ukraine.
Torture in secret prisons
Polozov believes that inhumane conditions of detention are practiced in secret prisons, as described by Ukrainian soldiers who have returned from captivity: "These are all the horrors of Russian captivity that we know about - with torture, with sexualized violence."
Conditions are better in the pre-trial detention center, where prisoners of war are placed when official charges are brought, the human rights activist said.
Another human rights activist involved in the defense of Ukrainian prisoners of war told the Agency that he had not heard of secret prisons, but suggested that it could be a repeat of the situation that was already observed in 2022. At that time, pre-trial detention centers for prisoners transported from the war zone appeared in the occupied territories. That's how Detention Center No. 2 appeared in Crimea - at first, it was not known about it, and then information appeared.
"The difference is the scale," says Polozov. - "While there it was hastily made torture chambers in basements, here it is scaled up to torture chambers that can hold hundreds of people," Polozov said.
After the war is over, the practice of secret prisons can be scaled up to Russians, Polozov believes.
Earlier, it was reported that 80% of the bodies repatriated from Russian detention centers and prisons show signs of torture.
Journalists also identified four Russian employees of the Kursk Detention Center No. 1 who tortured Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Ukraine is aware of at least 300 places where the aggressor country, Russia, is holding Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians.
